Let the Coaches Coach. Let the Manager Manage.

Paul Wise

Badges and philosophies are everywhere in non-league football. But are being a good coach and being a good manager actually the same thing?

There seems to be an increasing trend in non-league football, and certainly around the Southern Combination League, for clubs to appoint what I would describe as “coaching managers”.

These are often highly qualified coaches. UEFA B badges are becoming increasingly common at our level, and you’ll even find people with UEFA A qualifications working around Step 5 and Step 6 football.

Now, before anyone gets the wrong idea, I’m certainly not against qualified coaches. Far from it. Good coaching is hugely important and there are some excellent coaches working at our level.

But are being a good coach and being a good manager actually the same thing?

Personally, I don’t think they are.

Philosophy or Pragmatism?

Given the choice, I prefer a manager who surrounds himself with a good coach or, ideally, a group of good coaches. Let the coaches coach. Let the manager manage.

There is a difference.

My issue with some coaching managers is that I sometimes feel the philosophy comes before the players.

A coach develops a way he believes football should be played. He wants his side playing out from the back, dominating possession, building through the thirds and playing what we’ve all come to describe as “the right way”.

That’s absolutely fine — if you have the players capable of doing it. But what happens when you don’t?

This is where, for me, a manager thinks slightly differently.

Rather than looking at his players and asking, “How do I get these players to play my way?”, a manager should be asking, “What is the best way of winning football matches with the players I have?”

That might mean playing through the thirds. It might mean going more direct. It might mean sitting deep and counter-attacking. It might mean pressing high. It might even mean changing from week to week depending on the opposition, the pitch and the conditions.

For the life of me, I cannot understand watching a team struggle week after week, making the same mistakes while trying to play a certain way, and then continuing to do exactly the same thing because that is supposedly the “right way to play football”.

In my opinion, there is only one right way to play football.

The way that wins you the game.

How Much Can You Really Coach at Step 6?

There is another reality we sometimes seem to forget when talking about coaching at this level.

This isn’t professional football.

At Step 6, you might get your players for an hour and a half of training each week. Even then, how often do you actually have everybody there?

Players work. They have families. People are injured. Someone gets stuck at work. Someone else is away. Another player can train one week but not the next.

That is the reality of non-league football.

So how much can you genuinely improve a senior player’s technical ability in that environment?

If you have a 26-year-old centre-half who has spent his entire footballing life being technically limited, are you really going to turn him into a ball-playing centre-half with 90 minutes of training a week?

I’m not convinced you are.

But you can make him fitter.

You can make him sharper.

You can organise him.

You can work on his positioning, your defensive shape, distances between units, pressing, transitions and set pieces. You can make sure he knows exactly what his job is on a Saturday and exactly what the player next to him is going to do.

And surely that is where the limited training time available at this level can have the biggest impact?

That doesn’t mean you stop trying to improve players technically. Of course you don’t. But there has to be an understanding of the level you are working at and what you can realistically achieve in the time available.

Perhaps that is another difference between coaching and managing.

The coach can sometimes see the player he wants someone to become. The manager has to recognise the player he already has and work out how best to use him.

Are We Overcoaching Young Players?

That leads me onto something else I’ve increasingly wondered about.

Are young players being over-coached?

We seem to be producing more and more players who have grown up playing a very technical, possession-based style of football. Keep the ball. Play through the thirds. Be comfortable in possession. Build from the goalkeeper.

Again, none of those things are bad.

But are we becoming so obsessed with producing technically educated footballers that we are forgetting to prepare them for what senior football actually looks like?

Because Step 5 and Step 6 football can be a completely different world.

A young player might have spent years being taught to receive the ball in certain areas, play in a particular structure and make technically correct decisions.

Then he steps into senior football on a freezing cold Tuesday night in January, on a heavy pitch, with the wind blowing sideways, against a 30-something-year-old centre-half whose main intention for the first ten minutes is to make absolutely certain he knows he is in a game. Suddenly football looks very different.

At this level, technical ability matters. Of course it does.

But so does physicality. So does aggression. So does resilience. So does understanding how to compete.

Sometimes you’ve got to win the first ball.

Sometimes you’ve got to win the second ball.

Sometimes you’ve got to put the ball in Row Z.

Sometimes the pitch means you simply cannot play the football you wanted to play.

And sometimes you have to find a way of winning an ugly football match.

Are we teaching young players enough about that side of the game?

Is the Next Generation Becoming Soft?

It’s a provocative question, but I think it’s worth asking.

Are we producing technically better footballers, but mentally softer ones?

And perhaps an even bigger question is whether that side of a footballer can actually be coached.

You can coach somebody’s positioning.

You can coach patterns of play.

You can improve somebody’s first touch.

You can coach when and where you want a team to press.

But can you coach someone to desperately want to win?

Can you coach someone to stick their head where it hurts?

Can you coach someone to keep going when they’re cold, wet, tired and losing?

Can you teach somebody to dig in for the final ten minutes when you’re under pressure and your backs are against the wall?

Can you actually coach someone to be, for want of a better phrase, a man in a man’s game?

Or is some of that simply programmed into you?

I don’t know the answer.

But I do know that when I watch football at this level, the teams with the most technically gifted players don’t always win.

Quite often, the team that understands the level better does.

What Is the Manager Actually There to Do?

Ultimately, I think this whole debate comes down to one question.

What is the job of a manager at Step 5 or Step 6?

Is it primarily to develop footballers and implement a footballing philosophy?

Or is it to win football matches?

Obviously, the perfect answer is both.

If you can develop players, play attractive football and win games at the same time, fantastic.

But what happens when those things conflict?

If your philosophy isn’t working, do you change the players or change the philosophy?

And if you don’t have the budget or pulling power to recruit the players capable of playing your way, surely good management means adapting?

There will be coaches who completely disagree with me. They will argue that abandoning a philosophy when things become difficult is exactly why teams never develop technically. They’ll say players need time to learn a system and clubs need patience if they want to build something.

And there is undoubtedly some truth in that.

But while you’re waiting for it all to click, somebody else has just taken the three points.

That is why, personally, I still favour the traditional setup.

Give me a manager who understands players, recruits well, knows how to build a dressing room, can make difficult decisions and understands what is required to win at the level.

Then let him surround himself with the best coaches he can find.

Because having qualifications and knowing how you want football to be played undoubtedly makes you a coach.

I’m just not convinced it automatically makes you a manager.

First published in Dugout News, Issue 002, Sunday 16 August 2026. Republished here in full.